Alejandro Escovedo and the Decapitation Nation

I always hold my breath when a great performer comes to Rochester: Do we get it? To my great relief, a couple of hundred people greeted Alejandro Escovedo & the Sensitive Boys Tuesday night at Zeppa Auditorium at the German House.

The venue has been seriously cleaned up, and the menu at the downstairs Zeppa Bistro is a vast improvement over its previous sports-bar incarnation. All good news, as the city - with Water Street Music Hall still struggling to get its liquor license - seems to be short a few venues capable of hosting a damn good rock band.

The Sensitive Boys presented a superb evening of Escovedo's elegant rock compositions; they're not just songs, the Texas treasure writes music of great beauty. Songs like "Wave," a poem of American immigration inspired by Escovedo's own Mexican heritage. Deep into the show, Escovedo decided to amp it up even more, with a whammy-bar version of Neil Young's "Hurricane" that had Escovedo doing Pete Townsend guitar windmills.

It was, as Escovedo noted late in the show, a pretty good Tuesday in Rochester.

His "Deer Head on the Wall," which Escovedo noted combines taxidermy with Buddhism, reminded me of my recent driving trip to Texas. I shot a lot of iPhone video, and was surprised at how many dead animal heads I'd encountered. My favorite writers are the Southern Gothic folks like Flannery O'Conner and Eudora Welty, who stared into the glass-eyed face of death, so I guess it makes sense.

I've assembled a short video of my tour of our Decapitation Nation. It's a good way to start your morning.